Boys tennis featured repeat champs, nice-guy Dippel

Boys tennis featured repeat team champions at two of its four state tournaments this year. Salina Central, which won its sixth consecutive title in Class 5A, may struggle to add a seventh since numerous seniors graduated this spring.

However, Wichita Collegiate still looks promising after picking up its second championship in a row – and its third in four years – at Class 3-2-1A competition. The Spartans are in good shape since only one of their six semifinalists was a senior. Collegiate sent two singles players and two doubles teams to the state semifinals.

The doubles team of Paul Abromeit and Wyatt Kesler emerged in first place. The pair faced half of last year’s state-championship doubles team, Brandon Somerhalder, in the final.

Brandon, also of Collegiate, won last season with teammate Miles Dunne. He played doubles this year with senior Varoon Bashyakarla.

Independence nearly put together a four-year run in Class 4A, but Smoky Valley dethroned the three-time defending state champ. It was Smoky Valley’s first team title since 1997.

The 4A state final pitted last year’s 4A singles champion, Smoky Valley’s Chase Dippel, against last year’s 3-2-1A singles winner, Independent’s Ryan Norman. The Independent School moved up to 4A this year, so only one of the seniors could defend his title.

Ryan barely escaped 7-5 in the first set at Oakdale Park in Salina, but he cruised 6-1 in the second set of the championship. Despite ending his season with a loss, Chase was in good spirits after the contest. He and Ryan are friends, and it probably didn’t hurt that Chase and his teammates secured a team title.

I asked Catch It Kansas high school prep editors to name, in their opinion, the athlete with the best sportsmanship – but it had to be a player who didn’t attend their school. One writer gave a resounding endorsement of Chase.

“He is a superb athlete in football, basketball and tennis, and he’s not cocky at all,” said the prep editor. “He was his school’s best player – and really the only player – but he just worked hard regardless and never gave up. During a basketball game when someone yelled, ‘Hey, Dippel! Remember football season when I tackled you?’ all Chase did was turn around during the game and smile, saying, ‘Yeah, man, I still do.’

“As my friend put it when they played in tennis, ‘He’s the kind of guy you want to hate because he’s so good and he beats you, but you just can’t because he’s so nice. He’s seriously like the nicest guy ever.’”